Outside of class, she was easier to put up with.
“Well now, Isabel, I think we’ll just save your selections until last so we’ll have something to look forward to.” Isabel nods like this is probably psychologically sound.
And I put my hand up. This freezes Miss Klimer’s eyes in midflit. I’m not what you’d call an aggressive participant. That means I never volunteer. But I have a poem, and I’d just as soon get it out of the way soI can relax and think my own thoughts. And providing I can pick it out myself, I don’t mind poetry—rhymed or unrhymed—it’s all the same to me. What I do mind is being addressed as “boys and girls.”
“Brian Bishop has a poem,” Miss Klimer says, like she’s not so sure I do. “Stand up and read it to us.” So I do. I’d found it in a fairly new book, and it met all the requirements. It was very modern and up-to-date, and it was all about a high school band marching down a street in the fall—very moody, and with sound effects, and quiet after the band goes off in the distance. Short too. When I finish it, Miss Klimer looks pleased—and somewhat relieved. So I sit down, and Miss Klimer starts looking for the next victim. Arlene DeSappio has her hand halfway up, but Miss Klimer’s looking everywhere but at her. She calls on a few more boys and girls, and they give theirs.
By then, Arlene is waving her hand in the air, and so Miss Klimer says, “Yes, Arlene, now you.”
So poor old Arlene jumps up and starts in without even looking down at her page. In this high, fast monotone she recites:
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
which brings on sort of a groan running through the half of the class that had Mrs. Vogel back in fifth grade. This happened to be Mrs. Vogel’s favorite poem, and she made us all memorize it. But Arlene plugs along with it like it’s hot off the presses and way up on the charts.
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea, . . .
The nearer the end, the faster she went. Arlene was developing a very good bosom. But from the neck up, she was lost. When she finished, she dropped back into her chair, kind of flushed.
Then Miss Klimer says, “Yes . . . well, that was, of course, a poem highly praised in the last century. And certainly very well known . . .” Then she gives up because we all get the point except Arlene, who’s looking bewildered because she’d been aiming to please. “Well, let’s move right along. I wonder if
you
have a poem, Philip Townsend?”
He does; and he gets up, and comes to the front of the room, and announces the title: “Frankenstein.”
Then he begins, sort of acting it out with appropriate gestures of one hand:
In his occult-science lab
Frankenstein creates a Flab
Which, endowed with human will,
Very shortly starts to kill.
First, it pleads a lonely life
And demands a monster-wife;
“Monstrous!” Frankenstein objects,
Thinking of the side-effects.
Chilled with fear, he quits the scene,
But the frightful man-machine
Follows him in hot pusuit
Bumping people off
en route,
Till at last it stands, malign,
By the corpse of Frankenstein!
Somewhere in the northern mists
—
Horrid thing
—it still exists . . .
Still at large, a-thirst for gore!
Got a strong lock on your door?
This performance is met with a long ovation from the class, who never counted on any entertainment in Language Arts. They love it. And as Flip returns to his seat, people reach out to shake his hand and ask him for a copy of it and like that.
When it’s finally quiet, Miss Klimer draws herself up extra tall and says, “When we speak of modern poetry, we do not include
morbid doggerel.
That so-called verse is, among other things, tasteless. I do think, Philip Townsend, that you have a twisted sense of humor and a preoccupation with the grotesque. Isabel, I think we need you, read some . . .” But the bell rings then. And Miss Klimer sits down, completely disgusted,
“Well now, Isabel, I think we’ll just save your selections until last so we’ll have something to look forward to.” Isabel nods like this is probably psychologically sound.
And I put my hand up. This freezes Miss Klimer’s eyes in midflit. I’m not what you’d call an aggressive participant. That means I never volunteer. But I have a poem, and I’d just as soon get it out of the way soI can relax and think my own thoughts. And providing I can pick it out myself, I don’t mind poetry—rhymed or unrhymed—it’s all the same to me. What I do mind is being addressed as “boys and girls.”
“Brian Bishop has a poem,” Miss Klimer says, like she’s not so sure I do. “Stand up and read it to us.” So I do. I’d found it in a fairly new book, and it met all the requirements. It was very modern and up-to-date, and it was all about a high school band marching down a street in the fall—very moody, and with sound effects, and quiet after the band goes off in the distance. Short too. When I finish it, Miss Klimer looks pleased—and somewhat relieved. So I sit down, and Miss Klimer starts looking for the next victim. Arlene DeSappio has her hand halfway up, but Miss Klimer’s looking everywhere but at her. She calls on a few more boys and girls, and they give theirs.
By then, Arlene is waving her hand in the air, and so Miss Klimer says, “Yes, Arlene, now you.”
So poor old Arlene jumps up and starts in without even looking down at her page. In this high, fast monotone she recites:
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
which brings on sort of a groan running through the half of the class that had Mrs. Vogel back in fifth grade. This happened to be Mrs. Vogel’s favorite poem, and she made us all memorize it. But Arlene plugs along with it like it’s hot off the presses and way up on the charts.
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea, . . .
The nearer the end, the faster she went. Arlene was developing a very good bosom. But from the neck up, she was lost. When she finished, she dropped back into her chair, kind of flushed.
Then Miss Klimer says, “Yes . . . well, that was, of course, a poem highly praised in the last century. And certainly very well known . . .” Then she gives up because we all get the point except Arlene, who’s looking bewildered because she’d been aiming to please. “Well, let’s move right along. I wonder if
you
have a poem, Philip Townsend?”
He does; and he gets up, and comes to the front of the room, and announces the title: “Frankenstein.”
Then he begins, sort of acting it out with appropriate gestures of one hand:
In his occult-science lab
Frankenstein creates a Flab
Which, endowed with human will,
Very shortly starts to kill.
First, it pleads a lonely life
And demands a monster-wife;
“Monstrous!” Frankenstein objects,
Thinking of the side-effects.
Chilled with fear, he quits the scene,
But the frightful man-machine
Follows him in hot pusuit
Bumping people off
en route,
Till at last it stands, malign,
By the corpse of Frankenstein!
Somewhere in the northern mists
—
Horrid thing
—it still exists . . .
Still at large, a-thirst for gore!
Got a strong lock on your door?
This performance is met with a long ovation from the class, who never counted on any entertainment in Language Arts. They love it. And as Flip returns to his seat, people reach out to shake his hand and ask him for a copy of it and like that.
When it’s finally quiet, Miss Klimer draws herself up extra tall and says, “When we speak of modern poetry, we do not include
morbid doggerel.
That so-called verse is, among other things, tasteless. I do think, Philip Townsend, that you have a twisted sense of humor and a preoccupation with the grotesque. Isabel, I think we need you, read some . . .” But the bell rings then. And Miss Klimer sits down, completely disgusted,
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